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Toddlers Do Not Preferentially Transmit Generalizable Information to Others

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Title: Toddlers Do Not Preferentially Transmit Generalizable Information to Others
Language: English
Authors: Didar Karadag (ORCID 0000-0003-3290-5229), Marina Bazhydai (ORCID 0000-0001-9619-3975), Gert Westermann (ORCID 0000-0003-2803-1872)
Source: Developmental Science. 2024 27(4).
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 12
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Toddlers, Information Transfer, Communication (Thought Transfer), Generalization, Transfer of Training, Learning, Foreign Countries
Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13479
ISSN: 1363-755X
1467-7687
Abstract: Children actively and selectively transmit information to others based on the type of information and the context during learning. Four- to 7-year-old children preferentially transmit generalizable information in teaching-like contexts. Although 2-year-old children are able to distinguish between generalizable and non-generalizable information, it is not known whether they likewise transmit generalizable information selectively. We designed a behavioral study to address this question. Two-year-old children were presented with three novel boxes, identical except for their color. In each box, one of two equally salient actions led to a generalizable outcome (e.g., playing a [different] tune in each box), whereas the other led to a non-generalizable outcome (e.g., turning on a light, vibrating the box, or making a noise). In the discovery phase, children had a chance to discover the functions of each box presented one-by-one. Then, in the exploration phase, they were given the opportunity to independently explore all three boxes presented together. Finally, in the transmission phase, an ignorant recipient entered the room and asked the child to show them how these toys work. We measured whether children preferentially transmitted either generalizable or non-generalizable information when they were asked to demonstrate the function of the toys to a naïve adult. We found that children did not display any preference for transmitting generalizable information. These findings are discussed with respect to toddlers' selectivity in transmitting information but also the development of sensitivity to information generalizability.
Abstractor: As Provided
Notes: https://osf.io/aqtwr
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1427784
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0177740569;5g501jul.24;2024Jun11.05:09;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0177740569-1">Toddlers do not preferentially transmit generalizable information to others </title> <p>Children actively and selectively transmit information to others based on the type of information and the context during learning. Four‐ to 7‐year‐old children preferentially transmit generalizable information in teaching‐like contexts. Although 2‐year‐old children are able to distinguish between generalizable and non‐generalizable information, it is not known whether they likewise transmit generalizable information selectively. We designed a behavioral study to address this question. Two‐year‐old children were presented with three novel boxes, identical except for their color. In each box, one of two equally salient actions led to a generalizable outcome (e.g., playing a [different] tune in each box), whereas the other led to a non‐generalizable outcome (e.g., turning on a light, vibrating the box, or making a noise). In the discovery phase, children had a chance to discover the functions of each box presented one‐by‐one. Then, in the exploration phase, they were given the opportunity to independently explore all three boxes presented together. Finally, in the transmission phase, an ignorant recipient entered the room and asked the child to show them how these toys work. We measured whether children preferentially transmitted either generalizable or non‐generalizable information when they were asked to demonstrate the function of the toys to a naïve adult. We found that children did not display any preference for transmitting generalizable information. These findings are discussed with respect to toddlers' selectivity in transmitting information but also the development of sensitivity to information generalizability. Research Highlight: Young children transmit information to others and do so with some degree of selectivity to a variety of factors.Generalizability is an important factor affecting information transmission, and older children tend to associate generalizable information with teaching‐like interactions.We tested whether toddlers selectively transmitted it to others over non‐generalizable information.We found that toddlers do not show a preference to transmit generalizable over non‐generalizable information.</p> <p>Keywords: cultural information exchange; generalizable information; information transmission; teaching</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-2">INTRODUCTION</hd> <p>From very early on, children take an active role in cultural knowledge exchange by actively seeking and transmitting information. Even though there is a myriad of findings regarding children's role as active information seekers, their role as active transmitters of information and the factors that influence their transmission have remained relatively underexplored. Findings suggest that children begin actively transmitting information from infancy, and their transmission is influenced by the type of information that they transmit, among several other factors (for a review, see Ronfard & Harris, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref1">50</reflink>]). Here, we investigate the role of information generalizability on toddlers' information transmission.</p> <p>Child‐led information transmission is evident from early in life and manifests in several ways, from the simple use of a pointing gesture (e.g., Liszkowski et al., [[<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref2">40</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref3">39</reflink>]]; Meng & Hashiya, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref4">43</reflink>]; O'Neill, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref5">45</reflink>]) to providing contingent feedback in response to recipient behavior (e.g., Davis‐Unger & Carlson, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref6">19</reflink>]). After observing an adult looking for an object, 12‐ and 18‐month‐old infants point to the object's location to inform the adult about its place (Liszkowski et al., [[<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref7">39</reflink>]]). At 24 months, children transmit information to naïve recipients by re‐enacting the actions that they were previously taught (Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref8">5</reflink>]; Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref9">59</reflink>]). Starting from 3 years of age, children use spontaneous demonstrations and verbal expressions to correct others' mistakes and to inform them about game rules and, at around 5 years of age, their demonstrations are accompanied by explanations and instructions (Davis‐Unger & Carlson, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref10">19</reflink>]; Strauss et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref11">56</reflink>]). At 7 years, their transmission becomes contingent on the behavior of the recipient such as updating the type or amount of information provided to others (Ziv et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref12">61</reflink>]; see, Strauss & Ziv, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref13">55</reflink>]; Strauss et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref14">54</reflink>], for reviews).</p> <p>Before transmitting information, some selectivity may be required, for example, the transmitter may need to decide what type of information would be the most relevant for the recipient and how much it would benefit them (e.g., Bridgers et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref15">6</reflink>]; Gweon & Shulz, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref16">31</reflink>]; Gweon et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref17">32</reflink>]). It becomes an important endeavor, then, to identify what type of information children are more likely to treat as worthy of transmitting. Both in pre‐schoolers and older children, preferential transmission has been found for culturally relevant information such as social norms (e.g., Rakoczy et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref18">49</reflink>]; Schmidt et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref19">52</reflink>]) and conventions (e.g., Clegg & Legare, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref20">14</reflink>]). Additionally, 5‐ to 7‐year‐old children selectively transmit information that is difficult to acquire through self‐exploration such as complex (e.g., Bridgers et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref21">6</reflink>]) or cognitively opaque knowledge (e.g., Ronfard et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref22">51</reflink>]), and information that has better learning outcomes such as leading to interesting over dull effects (e.g., Bridgers et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref23">6</reflink>]). Finally, 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children transmit generic over specific information preferentially (e.g., Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref24">2</reflink>]; Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref25">27</reflink>]; for a review, see Ronfard & Harris, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref26">50</reflink>]). For instance, when children are asked to provide information about umbrellas to an ignorant learner, they provide general information (e.g., "Umbrellas protect us from rain"); however, if the learner already has some information about umbrellas, they provide specific information instead (e.g., "This umbrella is colorful") (Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref27">2</reflink>]).</p> <p>The generalizability of information has particular relevance for better understanding children's information transmission behavior because it makes up a considerable amount of information that we possess about the external world (Prasada, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref28">47</reflink>]) and it enables effective learning about the world. Generalizability is often reflected in our generic, <emph>kind‐based</emph> knowledge rather than knowledge about individuals (e.g., "Dogs have four legs") and in the essential properties that are inherent to a certain kind (e.g., "Dogs bark") that are not invalidated by limited counterexamples (e.g., a three‐legged dog) (Prasada, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref29">47</reflink>]). Humans acquire this type of information through linguistic means such as using generics (Gelman, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref30">21</reflink>]) and non‐linguistic ways such as tracking perceptual generalizability of the information through induction (e.g., Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref31">3</reflink>]; McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref32">42</reflink>]) and attending to others' ostensive demonstration (for a theoretical account see Csibra & Shamsudheen, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref33">16</reflink>]). Since it is not possible to witness every single example (e.g., every single dog) that makes up a kind (i.e., dogs), it has been suggested that kind information is acquired through a "generic" heuristic (Gelman, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref34">21</reflink>]).</p> <p>Generics are defined as linguistic expressions that refer to kinds and extend beyond exemplars (Gelman & Roberts, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref35">24</reflink>]), and they are ubiquitous in 2‐to 4‐year‐old children's and parents' conversations from early on (e.g., Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref36">26</reflink>]). Starting from at least 2 years of age, parents from different cultures (e.g., American and Chinese) use generic statements in their interactions with children (e.g., Gelman & Tardiff, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref37">25</reflink>]). From the ages of 2 to 4 years children progress in developing a comprehension of generics and, using different contextual cues (such as linguistic, pragmatic, and world knowledge cues), they can distinguish generic from non‐generic utterances (e.g., Cimpian & Markman, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref38">12</reflink>]; Gelman & Raman, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref39">23</reflink>]). At 2.5 years, children are already attuned to linguistically transmitted information generalizability (e.g., generic noun phrases like "Blicks" vs. non‐generic noun phrases like "These blicks") and use this knowledge to inform the assumptions they make about kinds (e.g., Graham et al., [[<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref40">29</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref41">28</reflink>]]). Further, 4‐ and 7‐year‐old children expect that novel generic fact (e.g., "Hedgehogs eat hexapods") are more likely to be known by others than novel specific facts (e.g., "This hedgehog eats hexapods") (Cimpian & Scott, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref42">13</reflink>]). Finally, 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children associate generalizable information with teaching contexts in which a knowledgeable person transmits information to a less knowledgeable person (Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref43">27</reflink>]). Overall, these findings suggest that from at least 2.5 years of age, children use linguistic means to distinguish generalizable information from non‐generalizable information.</p> <p>However, even preverbal infants, although, by definition, they do not produce generics themselves, track categorical generalizability based on perceptual similarity and kind‐relevance (e.g., Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref44">3</reflink>], McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref45">42</reflink>]; Vukatana et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref46">60</reflink>]). Previous studies have shown that by 2 years of age, children have already developed a pronounced sensitivity to generalizability. For instance, infants between the ages of 9 and 16 months can generalize an opaque feature of an object that they previously observed even for a brief period and with only one exemplar (e.g., a horn that honks when squeezed or bitten) to other objects that are perceptually similar to the original object, and they do not expect dissimilar objects to have the same opaque feature as the original object (Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref47">3</reflink>]). In another study, Mcdonough and Mandler ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref48">42</reflink>]) tested 9‐ and 11‐month‐old infants' inferences about object properties. Infants were shown objects from different categories (i.e., animals and artifacts) and an action (e.g., sleeping or being keyed) on a particular model object such as a prop car being keyed or a prop dog sleeping. Later in the test phase, infants were given other objects from both the animal category and the vehicle category. Infants appropriately generalized properties of objects within the same category, namely, if they were given a prop dog or a cat, infants were more likely to imitate sleeping or drinking actions rather than riding or keying actions (McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref49">42</reflink>]). These findings suggest that even before children are linguistically proficient enough to produce and use generics as a means for representing kind‐relevant generalizable information, they can nevertheless perceive which properties of objects are generalizable based on both perceptual similarity of the objects and the kind relevance of the objects (i.e., similar objects from the same category tend to share same non‐obvious properties).</p> <p>Given children's sensitivity to generalizable information, several studies have also investigated whether such information holds a privileged status in their own transmission of information to others. Gelman et al. ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref50">27</reflink>]) tested whether 4‐ and 7‐year‐old children themselves would produce more generics in a pedagogical over a conversational context. In their study, they provided the children with picture books, introduced them to a puppet and asked them to talk to the puppet about the picture books. The children were told to pretend to either be a classroom teacher (pedagogical context) or a peer having a conversation with a friend (non‐pedagogical context) when talking to the puppet about the pictures. When children were asked to pretend to be a teacher, they produced generic statements more often (Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref51">27</reflink>]). These results, therefore, point to a developing distinction between pedagogical and non‐pedagogical contexts and its relation to generic information. In a related study, Baer and Friedman ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref52">2</reflink>]) found that 4‐6‐year‐old children were sensitive to the perceived knowledge state of a recipient of information. When children were asked to transfer information about certain kinds to either ignorant or knowledgeable recipients, they referred to generic facts about a kind more when the recipient was ignorant. Additionally, the authors observed the same tendency when they manipulated the context of information transmission, with children providing generalizable information more when they were asked to "teach" over when they were asked to "tell" (Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref53">2</reflink>]; Experiment 3).</p> <p>The described findings overall suggest that children from 4 years onward preferentially transmit generalizable information in teaching‐like contexts and to ignorant others. However, it is important to note that these studies were conducted with pre‐school‐ and school‐aged children, potentially benefitting from these children's experience with formal pedagogical contexts (e.g., Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref54">2</reflink>]; Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref55">27</reflink>]). For example, in these studies children were shown pictures of classrooms and teachers and asked to pretend to be "a teacher<emph>"</emph> (Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref56">27</reflink>]), or to "teach" (Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref57">2</reflink>]), and these manipulations resulted in either producing more generic statements or providing generalizable information more. This approach makes it difficult to assess whether children transmit generalizable information preferentially because of their sensitivity to this type of information and would do so even outside (and prior to experience with) such formal pedagogical contexts. While evidence suggests that even 2‐ to 3‐year‐old children produce generics more in contexts such as when looking through a picture book over manipulating objects (e.g., Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref58">22</reflink>]), it is less clear whether this sensitivity to information generalizability in younger children also manifests in their preferred transmission of such information to others.</p> <p>Prior research conducted with preverbal infants and toddlers provides support to the notion that children, even in the first 2 years of life, transmit information to others—specifically those whom they observe to be less knowledgeable. Liszkowski et al. ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref59">40</reflink>]) found that 12‐month‐old infants pointed to the location of an object when an adult was searching for it and had not seen where the object was, but not when the adult had visual access to the location of the searched object. In another study, 24‐month‐old toddlers were found to selectively demonstrate actions to naïve recipients that are simple over complex ones (Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref60">5</reflink>]) and that they had previously learned through pedagogical demonstrations (Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref61">59</reflink>]; but see Bazhydai, Silverstein et al., for a non‐replication). It is apparent that younger children are not only capable of active transmission of information, but that they select what to transmit with respect to the characteristics of the recipient (Liszkowski et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref62">40</reflink>]), the context of learning, or the type of information (Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref63">5</reflink>]; Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref64">59</reflink>]). Given children's early sensitivity to information generalizability, and older children's selectivity for transmitting generalizable information in teaching‐like contexts, one might reason that information generalizability plays a role in toddlers' information transmission also, leading them to transmit generalizable information selectively.</p> <p>Answering this question has theoretical importance because it would help elucidate whether the bias for transmission of generalizable information observed in 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children is a result of a gradual developmental process, perhaps facilitated by combined experiences with schooling and a transition from tracking perceptual generalizability to representing conceptual generalizability expressed through generic language, or whether it stems from children's appreciation of generalizable information as 'special' that is present from a young age. If a preference for generalizable information in transmission is based on children's recognition of conceptual generalizability and experience with schooling, then we would expect to observe no preference for it in younger children. If, on the other hand, generalizable information is preferred because of its recognized special status that is present already in infants and toddlers, then we would expect a preference for its transmission even in these younger children. Therefore, in the current study, we specifically investigated the role of information generalizability in children's early information transmission.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-3">The current study</hd> <p>The current study investigated whether 2‐year‐old children have a bias for transmitting generalizable over non‐generalizable information to a naïve learner. To answer this question, 2‐year‐olds were presented with three novel boxes, identical except their color. In each box, one of two equally salient and easy actions led to a generalizable outcome (e.g., playing a [different] tune in each box), whereas the other led to a non‐generalizable outcome (e.g., box 1: turning on a light, box 2: vibrating the box, box 3: making a noise). Children had the opportunity to interact with the boxes to discover the functions of each box and then were asked to demonstrate the boxes' functions to an ignorant recipient. We measured whether children preferentially transmitted either generalizable or non‐generalizable information when they were asked about the function of the toys.</p> <p>The design‐relevant decisions, such as the means of information acquisition, establishment of generalizability, and target age range, are based on previous studies on information transmission. First, previous research found that 2‐year‐old children might be more likely to transmit information that they previously learned from pedagogical demonstrations (e.g., demonstration accompanied by ostensive cues, Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref65">59</reflink>]); however, this result could not be replicated (Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref66">5</reflink>]). To avoid this potential confound, in our study children were allowed to discover both types of information on their own without receiving any instruction regarding the functioning of the toys. Second, in defining generalizability we followed Prasada's ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref67">47</reflink>]) conceptualization of generalizability as an attribute that refers to the kind in general (e.g., "Dogs are mammals") and inherent properties that hold true for the kind across individual exemplars (e.g., "Dogs bark"). In line with this definition, for the generalizable information we used similar but different tunes (i.e., "This type of button plays a tune") and for the non‐generalizable information, we used different perceptual effects, namely, noise, vibration, and lights ("This type of button makes a noise/creates a vibration/makes lights flash"). Third, in order to reveal whether children produce generalizable information specifically in teaching contexts, we contrast two phases ("exploration phase" and "transmission phase") that were identical apart from the fact that in the transmission phase an ignorant adult was present and asked the child to show her "how the toys work." We reasoned that if toddlers produced generalizable information preferentially but equally in both phases they would do so because such information is of relevance to themselves, but if they produced it preferentially only in the presence of a learner they would do so because they consider it relevant for teaching.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref68">1</reflink>]</p> <p>Finally, targeting 2‐year‐olds was motivated by the following considerations: First, research on children's information transmission primarily focused on 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children (see Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref69">5</reflink>]; Gweon, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref70">30</reflink>]; Strauss & Ziv, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref71">55</reflink>], for reviews), with only a handful of studies testing children 2 years old or younger (e.g., Liszkowski et al., [[<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref72">39</reflink>]]), leaving a gap in our understanding of the development of teaching behavior. This age group provides the best opportunity to explore whether a preference to generalizable information is present in young children's information transmission when generalizability of the information does not rely on verbal abilities such as producing and understanding generics and generic language or experience with formal schooling. Finally, children at this age have been shown to readily transmit information through action demonstrations (Akagi, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref73">1</reflink>]; Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref74">5</reflink>]; Flynn, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref75">20</reflink>]; O'Neill, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref76">45</reflink>]; Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref77">59</reflink>]).</p> <p>Hypothesis: We posited that a special role for generalizable information in transmission might be reflected in two ways. The first is that toddlers would transmit generalizable information preferentially and would choose the generalizable function as the first to be transmitted to an ignorant adult ("initial preference" hypothesis). Doing so would highlight to the learner the potential relevance, importance, or interest of this information, albeit not its generalizability. To demonstrate to the learner that the information is generalizable, the child must transmit different instances of this information (e.g., the same‐type button playing different tunes across boxes). We evaluated this "systematic preference" hypothesis by investigating the second function that children showed to the learner on a different box after showing a generalizable function (as the first function).</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-4">METHOD</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177740569-5">Participants</hd> <p>Based on the medium effect sizes in previous research on toddlers' information transmission (i.e., Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref78">5</reflink>]; Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref79">59</reflink>]) and an a priori power analysis[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref80">2</reflink>] (See Appendix A) which aimed for 90% power to detect a medium effect size (<emph>d</emph> = 0.50) we required 44 participants in the study. The final set included 49 healthy, full‐term (>37 weeks), British English‐speaking 24‐month‐old toddlers due to overbooking (<emph>Mage</emph> = 24.43 months, Range = 22.67–25.70 months, 25 females). Participants were recruited through the database of the Lancaster University Babylab between June 2022 and May 2023. Ethics approval was received from the Lancaster University FST Research Ethics Committee (FSTREC). Participants received a storybook and £5 compensation for their travel expenses, in accordance with laboratory‐wide practices.</p> <p> <emph>Exclusion Criteria</emph>: As pre‐registered, exclusions were made both at a participant level (if they did not contribute data from either block) and at a block level (if they did not contribute data from at least one block). Twenty‐three participants who did not contribute data from at the least one block was completely excluded from analysis (46 blocks); of the 49 children remaining in the dataset, data from 22 blocks were also discarded. Pre‐registered exclusion reasons are as follows: not complying with the procedure (e.g., refusing to play the game, not sitting on the caregiver's lap or high‐chair) or becoming fussy or indifferent (27 blocks), failing to discover both functions for each box in the initial Discovery phase (23 blocks), experimenter/equipment error (e.g., camera failure, biased instructions, failure to follow pre‐designated procedure) (3 blocks). Finally, data from 15 blocks were discarded for reasons that we did not pre‐register but later deemed necessary: Four blocks from two participants were discarded because their parents later informed us that their children were undergoing assessment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis, and 11 blocks were discarded because children did not demonstrate any function on the toys in the Transmission Phase which we did not originally foresee.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-6">Materials and stimuli</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177740569-7">Information transmission task</hd> <p>Two different sets of objects were created for each experimental block (See Figures 1 and 2, in Appendix B). Each set had three boxes printed using an Ultimaker 3D printer with PLA extrusion material. In both sets, the boxes were 135*93*72 mm cuboids with rounded edges and were identical except for their color (e.g., blue, green, yellow, white, etc.). Each box included one round push button and one square push button on top which looked identical across the boxes. There was a 3‐bulb LED strip on top of each box and a vibrating mechanism and audio speaker inside. The stimuli and switches were controlled by a Raspberry Pi Zero device programmed with a custom Python script. The output stimuli were triggered by pressing the buttons.</p> <p>The different buttons led to separate outcomes: one type triggered a generalizable outcome across boxes (e.g., three different tunes in Boxes 1, 2, and 3) and the other type, a non‐generalizable outcome across boxes as defined by the status at start‐up of the device. The boxes in the second set were conceptually identical but the physical features of the box (e.g., color of the box) and the buttons, and the outcomes associated with the buttons were different.</p> <p>Auditory Stimuli were three novel tunes lasting around 5 s each, and three modified non‐musical noise. Samples of these stimuli, along with the approved protocol of the Stage1 Registered Report can be found on the OSF page (https://osf.io/aqtwr/).</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-8">Design and procedure</hd> <p>Testing took place in the Lancaster University Babylab. Children interacted with two experimenters, both equally friendly and speaking in a child‐directed manner. Upon welcoming the caregiver and the child, Experimenter 1 (E1) informed the caregiver about the aim of the study and the experimental procedure and advised them to avoid distracting their child during testing. Then, the caregiver was asked to fill in the informed consent form.[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref81">3</reflink>] Later, E1 invited the child and the caregiver to the testing room. The child was seated in a highchair in front of a table with the caregiver seated behind the child, or on the caregiver's lap depending on how the child felt more comfortable. After building rapport with the child, E1 initiated the Warm‐up game before the first of two blocks of the experiment.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-9">Warm‐up</hd> <p>E1 played with the child for 30 s with a marble run game to get them familiarized with the experimental set up and determine the child's reaching limits to the right‐hand side, left‐hand side, and to the center of the table.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-10">Discovery phase</hd> <p>The three experimental boxes were hidden under the table in a cupboard that could not be seen by the child. E1 told the child that she had some toys she wanted to show to the child by saying: "I have really nice toys. Do you want to play with them? Let me show you one." Then, E1 took out the first toy and put it at the center of the table within the child's reach. The child had 30 s to play with the toy and explore both functions associated with distinct outcomes (e.g., the round button playing a tune, the square button lighting up the LED strip). If the child did not discover any/either function after 15 s passed, E1 prompted the child to continue exploring the toy by saying: "I wonder what would happen if you pushed that/the other button (if they had not already managed to activate both buttons)?" Each discovery trial ended under two circumstances: if the participant discovered both functions and explicitly cued that they were done (e.g., pushing the toy away), or if 30 s passed and the participant still failed to discover the functions. If the participant managed to discover at least one function in each box, they were given a chance to play with the "undiscovered" toys once more for 15 s. The experiment continued nonetheless; however, the data from children who did not manage to discover both functions in each box during the Discovery Phase were excluded from the final data.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-11">Exploration phase</hd> <p>E1 initiated the Exploration Phase by saying "Do you want to play more with these toys?" and putting all three boxes back on the table within the child's reach. E1 then diverted her attention from the child and engaged with her phone, allowing children to explore the toys independently for 30 s. If the children did not start playing with the toys, E1 prompted them by saying "Do you want to play with these?" When the time had elapsed, E1 told the child that she needed to leave to get something, but her friend would come. When E1 left, E2 entered the room and initiated the Transmission phase.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-12">Transmission phase</hd> <p>E2 entered the room by carrying some document boxes. E2 looked at the table, sat down and by noticing the toys, said: "Wow! Are these your new toys? What do these do? Can you show me?" If the child did not initiate any action within 15 s, E2 asked the child again: "Can you show me what these toys do?". After 15 more seconds, if the child did not act, E2 thanked the child, and left the room. The phase ended after 30 s.</p> <p>Then, when E2 left the room, E1 re‐entered the room, and repeated the whole procedure with a second set of objects (second block). If the participants did not engage or fussed out already in the first block, they were offered a short break and were given the opportunity to proceed with the second block. After the second block of the experiment was finished, E1 thanked the child and escorted them back to the greeting area.</p> <p>Each of the two experimental blocks had a set of three different boxes with different generalizable outcomes (e.g., one set had tunes as the generalizable outcome, whereas the other set had lights). Each block had three discovery trials (i.e., one for each box), one exploration and one transmission trial (each with all three boxes together), each lasting around 30 s. The experiment took around 9 min including the warm‐up (See Figure 3 in Appendix B).</p> <p>The following aspects of the stimuli were counterbalanced within and across participants: The order of the box set presented in each block were counterbalanced across participants (i.e., Set 1 in Block 1 and Set 2 in Block 2 vs. Set 2 in Block 1 and Set 1 in Block 2). The generalizable outcome was counterbalanced within and across participants (e.g., for Participant 1, tunes in Block 1, lights in Block 2; for Participant 2, noises in Block 1, vibrations in Block 2). The buttons associated with the generalizable outcome were counterbalanced within and across participants (e.g., for Participant 1, round button in Block 1 and square button in Block 2 were generalizable; for Participant 2, square button in Block 1 and round button in Block 2 were generalizable). Finally, the positions of the buttons were counterbalanced across participants (e.g., square on the left, round button on the right vs. round button on the left, square button on the right).</p> <p>All sessions were video and audio recorded for later behavioral coding.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-13">Measures and coding</hd> <p>Behavioral coding of all participants was done by the first author. A second coder, blind to the hypotheses of the study, coded 25% of all videos. A minimum Kappa statistic of 0.80 and a Cronbach's α statistic of 0.80 were aimed for agreement across coders for dichotomous and continuous variables, respectively. For dichotomous test measures (i.e., first and second functions in Exploration and Transmission phases), coders showed 100% agreement; thus, the Kappa statistic was not computed. We did not have a continuous variable in our test measures. Children were required to complete at least one of the experimental blocks to be included in the data.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-14">Discovery phase</hd> <p>In this phase, we coded whether the participants managed to discover two functions associated with the two buttons, and this was used as an exclusion criterion to make sure that children included in data analysis had produced each function at least once.</p> <p>The coding for the Exploration and Transmission phases was identical.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-15">Exploration and transmission phases</hd> <p>In these phases, we coded the first function produced by the child across all boxes (Hypothesis 1a: Children will preferentially produce generalizable information in the Transmission but not the Exploration phase). Additionally, we coded the second function different from the first (e.g., Were the first and the second functions both generalizable and on different boxes?) (Hypothesis 1b: Children will show that the information that they transmit is generalizable by selectively demonstrating the generalizable function across boxes in the Transmission phase, but not in the Exploration phase). The aim of this coding was to evaluate whether children show a preference for producing generalizable information and whether this preference is specific to information transmission contexts.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-16">Statistical analyses</hd> <p>We conducted all proposed analyses using JASP (JASP Team, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref82">34</reflink>]). We used both Frequentist and Bayesian methods of data analysis. We used non‐parametric tests as the assumptions of parametric tests were not met. The statistical significance threshold was 0.05. We computed a default Bayes factor for a wide Cauchy distribution centered at 0.707 for all results. A BF01 value greater than 3 was considered as moderate support for the null hypothesis and a BF10 value greater than 3 as moderate support for the experimental hypothesis (Jeffreys, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref83">33</reflink>]).</p> <p>The analyses for the Exploration and Transmission phases were identical.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-17">Exploration and transmission phase</hd> <p>Following the statistical procedures used in previous studies (Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref84">5</reflink>]; Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref85">59</reflink>]), we transformed children's first and second produced function from both experimental blocks into scores as follows: if children produced the generalizable function first in both blocks, they received +1 point, if they produced one generalizable and one non‐generalizable function first, they received 0, and finally, if they produced the non‐generalizable function first in both blocks, they received −1. If children provided data for only one block, they received +1 point when they produced the generalizable function first and they received −1 point when they produced the non‐generalizable function first. This scoring scheme was applied for the first and second functions in each phase in each block, as well.</p> <p>To understand whether children produced the generalizable function as the first function more frequently than the non‐generalizable, we planned to conduct a one‐sample t‐test to compare these scores against the chance value 0 (Hypothesis 1a—Initial Preference: Children will preferentially transmit generalizable information). Further, we planned to analyze the second function produced only for those children who showed initial preferential engagement with generalizable information, indexed by producing a generalizable function as the first choice in each of the two blocks (including those children who only contributed one block in which they preferentially chose generalizable information first). We planned to conduct a one‐sample <emph>t</emph>‐test against chance value 0 (Hypothesis 1b—Systematic Preference: Children will show that the information that they transmit is generalizable by selectively demonstrating the generalizable function across different boxes).</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-18">Cross‐phase comparison</hd> <p>Children's average mean scores from both blocks (or one block if they have only contributed one block) for the Exploration and Transmission Phases were calculated to analyze if children produced the same functions across phases by using a paired‐samples <emph>t</emph>‐test (See, Table 1 in Appendix C).</p> <p>1 TABLE Number of first function activations in exploration and transmission phases.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th /><th>Exploration phase</th><th>Transmission phase</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Generalizable information as first function</td><td>15</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td>Non‐generalizable information as first function</td><td>16</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>Both (generalizable function in one trial and non‐generalizable function in the other trial)</td><td>17</td><td>18</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 <emph>Note</emph>: In the Exploration Phase, <emph>n</emph> = 1 child did not activate any of the toys.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-19">Timeline</hd> <p>Due to the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic and the delay in the review process, it was difficult to anticipate a certain timeline for the study. Our original plan was to collect the data between January 2022 and August 2022; however, the final timeline was between June 2022 to May 2023.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-20">Deviations from the Stage 1 protocol</hd> <p>We deviated from the Stage 1 protocol, mainly to reduce excessive drop‐out and to increase the children's engagement with the task, as detailed below.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> In the Stage 1 Protocol, we specified that we would use a button and a toggle switch. As the toddlers lacked finger strength to operate the toggle switch, we instead used a distinct looking second button.</item> <p></p> <item> If toddlers failed to discover both functions in each box (stated exclusion criterion), we did not end the study immediately, instead let the child complete it but as planned, excluded the data from these trials from the final analyses.</item> <p></p> <item> Further, we observed the following procedural issues that seemingly unnecessarily led to participant exclusion, and made the following additional changes to improve their engagement:</item> <p></p> <item> If participants did not engage already in the first block, we offered them a play break and if they wanted to continue afterwards, we proceeded with the second block,</item> <p></p> <item> Due to the design of the boxes, when one button was activated, it was not possible to activate the other button until the effect of the activated button ended. Thus, if children pressed both buttons at the same time or pressed the other button while one was already activated, they could not immediately see the effect of the "unactivated button." The neutral prompt that we used initially ("I wonder what would happen if one were to push that button") either led toddlers to activate the same button they had already activated previously, or they ignored the prompt. Thus, we made a slight change to the prompt instead saying, "I wonder what would happen if you pushed that (if they hadn't pressed anything)/the other button (if they had pressed one button but not the other)."</item> <p></p> <item> Some toddlers were taken aback by the vibration function, and if this was the first function that they activated in the first box, they did not want to continue with the study. Since one of the inclusion criteria in the study is that toddlers should activate both functions in each box, this started to cause a decrease in eligible trials. Therefore, we presented the box that included a vibration function as the last box in the Discovery Phase to make sure that they had a chance to play with all boxes and activate both buttons and thus to be included in the data. To make sure that the change did not influence toddlers' behavior in the Transmission Phase, we added a manipulation check to ensure that toddlers were not less likely to transmit vibrations as the first function (see Supplementary Information). Though note that as vibration was counterbalanced across generalizable and non‐generalizable functions such an outcome would not present a confound in our planned analyses.</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0177740569-21">RESULTS</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177740569-22">Planned analyses</hd> <p>When the data were not normally distributed (Shapiro‐Wilks test <emph>p</emph> < .001) we used non‐parametric tests.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-23">Transmission phase</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0177740569-24">1a— HYPOTHESIS</hd> <p> <emph>Initial Preference</emph>: For this analysis, 49 children contributed data. Among these, 18 children showed a generalizable function as the first function in one block and the non‐generalizable function in the other block receiving a score of "0," 19 children showed a generalizable function as the first function in both blocks receiving a score of "+1," and 12 children showed a non‐generalizable function as the first function in both blocks receiving a score of "−1." A one‐sample Wilcoxon test revealed that children's choices for choosing the generalizable function as the first function did not significantly differ from chance (<emph>W</emph>(<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref86">48</reflink>) = 304.00, <emph>p</emph> = 0.213, <emph>r</emph> = 0.226). A default Bayes factor with a wide Cauchy distribution centered at 0.707 showed moderate support for the null hypothesis, BF01 = 3.404, (Median δ = 0.161, 95% CI δ[−0.135–0.460]).[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref87">4</reflink>]</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-25">1b— HYPOTHESIS</hd> <p> <emph>Systematic Preference</emph>: For this analysis, we focused on the data from 19 children who transmitted the generalizable function as the first function, and we analyzed the second function that they performed on a different box. Two children in this sub‐sample showed only one function in the Transmission phase, so their data were not included in this analysis. A one‐sample Wilcoxon test revealed that children's choices for choosing the generalizable function as the second function did not significantly differ from chance (<emph>W</emph>(<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref88">16</reflink>) = 72.00, <emph>p</emph> = 0.829, <emph>r</emph> = −0.059). A default Bayes factor with a wide Cauchy distribution centered at 0.707 showed moderate support for the null hypothesis, BF01 = 3.204 (Median δ = 0.048, 95% CI δ [−0.485–0.592]).</p> <p> <emph>Cross‐phase Comparison</emph>: We compared the toddlers' first functions in the Exploration and Transmission Phases (see Table 1). A Wilcoxon signed‐rank test showed that toddlers' first choices did not significantly differ across Exploration (<emph>M</emph> = –0.021, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.812) and Transmission Phases (<emph>M</emph> = 0.143, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.791), <emph>W</emph>(<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref89">47</reflink>) = 47.00, <emph>p</emph> = 0.154, <emph>r</emph> = –0.386. A default Bayes factor with a wide Cauchy distribution centered at 0.707 showed anecdotal support for the null hypothesis, BF01 = 2.325 (Median δ = −0.209, 95% CI δ [−0.521–0.094]).</p> <p>In addition to the planned analyses, we conducted a set of exploratory analyses because, unexpectedly, almost half of the toddlers who passed the inclusion criteria (<emph>n</emph> = 22/49) contributed data from only one block. To investigate if contributing data from both blocks versus one block influenced the results, we repeated the same planned analyses reported above with the data from the "first contributed block" only, thus eliminating the "both" functions option (assigned the score of "0"). The results of these analyses were the same as the results of the planned analyses (see Supplementary Information).</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-26">DISCUSSION</hd> <p>In this study, we aimed to investigate whether toddlers preferentially transmit generalizable over specific information to others. We presented toddlers with three novel boxes, each of which had two distinct buttons. One type of button in each box led to a generalizable outcome, whereas the other type led to a non‐generalizable outcome. After children discovered both functions in each box independently (Discovery phase), they were given a chance to play with all three boxes simultaneously (Exploration phase). Later, a naïve learner asked the toddlers to show her how these boxes worked (Transmission phase). We measured whether toddlers would prefer to transmit generalizable information as the first (Initial Preference Hypothesis) and the second function transmitted (Systematic Preference Hypothesis). The results of the study revealed that toddlers did not show a preference for transmitting generalizable or non‐generalizable information first. Even among the small number of toddlers who preferentially did show a generalizable function first, we did not detect any evidence of systematic preference for transmitting information generalizability. Finally, toddlers' behavior in the Exploration and Transmission phases was similar, they neither preferentially (nor systematically) explored nor transmitted either type of information. These conclusively null findings warrant further discussion in light of the previously reported older children's selectivity in transmitting information and the development of sensitivity to information generalizability.</p> <p>Previous findings show that children are exposed and attuned to generalizable information expressed through generic language as early as 2‐years‐old (e.g., Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref90">26</reflink>]; Gelman & Raman, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref91">23</reflink>], Graham et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref92">28</reflink>]), and as they get older they tend to associate generalizable information with teaching‐like contexts and, importantly, show a preference for its transmission to others (Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref93">2</reflink>]; Cimpian & Scott, 2008; Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref94">27</reflink>], Pueschel et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref95">48</reflink>]). Here, for the first time we investigated whether toddlers showed the same preference. Previous work has found that preverbal infants and toddlers are habitually exposed to generalizable information and are able to track generalizable properties of information (Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref96">3</reflink>], McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref97">42</reflink>]; Vukatana et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref98">60</reflink>]). Thus, we reasoned that if the preference for transmitting generalizable information is an early propensity, even toddlers would display this bias. However, if this preference is a consequence of a developmental change potentially supported by children's experiences with formal schooling and recognition of conceptual generalizability through language, then we would not expect a preference for transmitting this type of information in toddlers. We found that unlike older children, toddlers did not show a preference for transmitting such generalizable information to others.</p> <p>These findings can be interpreted in at least two ways. First, it is possible that even though young infants can distinguish generalizability of information by tracking perceptual cues (Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref99">3</reflink>], McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref100">42</reflink>]) and by being attentive to others' ostensive communication (Csibra & Shamsudheen, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref101">16</reflink>]), the special status of such information in transmission to others might depend on a more conceptual representation of generalizability and develop gradually, perhaps in conjunction with language, theory of mind, executive function, metacognition, and other relevant cognitive abilities which are considered crucial for more selective teaching that is tailored to the learner's needs (Corriveau et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref102">15</reflink>]). Additionally, in order to make the step from recognizing generalizable features to a more conceptual representation of generalizability, toddlers might require more explicit cues, for example, linguistic labels and pedagogical communication. Such explicit cues have been shown to modulate young children's inductive inferences about generalizability above and beyond the perceptual similarity of objects (Butler et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref103">8</reflink>]; Butler & Tomasello, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref104">7</reflink>]), but they were not part of the current study. In fact, it is precisely in order to rigorously isolate and evaluate the role of mere generalizability of the information, that we avoided providing any linguistic and pedagogical input to the toddlers during the Discovery and Exploration phases. Nevertheless, it is possible that early representation of generalizability might indeed be facilitated by the presence of pedagogical cues (among other factors such as linguistic labeling, i.e., use of generics), thus enabling toddlers to use it as a heuristic for evaluating the generalizability of non‐verbal information (akin to "non‐verbal generics" proposed Csibra & Shamsudheen, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref105">16</reflink>]). However, if sensitivity to generalizability of information was valuable for its own sake in the context of transmission and if even preverbal infants could already track perceptual generalizability with nonverbal stimuli such as functions (Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref106">3</reflink>]; Kemler Nelson et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref107">36</reflink>]; McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref108">42</reflink>]; Vukatana et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref109">60</reflink>]), we would expect this to be reflected in toddlers as well. Following this view, and in light of our study's findings, at 2 years, children's information transmission choices are not affected by information generalizability due to the pre‐conceptual representations of generalizability that is perhaps governed by perceptual similarity.</p> <p>Alternatively, the observed lack of preference might be due to the modality of generalizability used in our study. We focused on non‐verbal manifestations of generalizability that did not rely on toddlers' language abilities such as recognizing or producing generic statements. Previous studies on this topic tested relatively older children between 4 and 7 years using different variations of a teaching task, such as forced‐choice paradigms where children are presented with generalizable and episodic verbal statements to share with a naïve learner (e.g., Pueschel et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref110">48</reflink>]), or more open‐ended paradigms where children pretended to teach others about a particular topic (e.g., Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref111">2</reflink>]; Gelman et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref112">27</reflink>]). Crucially, in all of these studies, the generalizable information was verbal and expressed through generic language (Gelman, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref113">21</reflink>]; Prasada, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref114">47</reflink>]). However, these designs are not suitable for younger children. Indeed, some studies reported that 3‐year‐olds failed to complete these tasks (e.g., Baer & Friedman, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref115">2</reflink>]; Pueschel et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref116">48</reflink>]) which might be due to younger children's limited language or other cognitive abilities. Therefore, here we focused on non‐verbal manifestations of generalizability by using action demonstrations. It is possible that in an action‐based task like ours, children are less sensitive to generalizability than in verbal tasks due to the higher level of abstraction required to conceptualize generalizability. This could be tested by using similar tasks to ours with older children who do show such sensitivity on verbal tasks.</p> <p>Further to this interpretation, it is possible that toddlers might have failed to represent the generalizability inherent to our stimuli. The differences between the generalizable, that is, different exemplars of the same type of effect in each box (i.e., square button playing different tunes) and non‐generalizable information (i.e., different "type" of effect in each box, e.g., round button turning a light on, vibrating the box, and making a non‐musical sound) might have been too subtle for toddlers to drive their transmission behavior. We conceptualized generalizable information as information that is distinct but similar (such as three distinct tunes), and non‐generalizable information as information that is distinct and not similar (such as light/vibration/sound). Additionally, this higher level of abstraction enabled us to make sure that with each press of each button in each box, something novel—but either generalizable or non‐generalizable—happened. Nonetheless, this choice might have made it difficult for 2‐year‐old children to detect generalizability between these stimuli and instead they demonstrated actions they themselves found of interest at that moment. It is important to emphasize that toddlers could have transmitted what they themselves found interesting, rather than generalizable, regardless of whether or not they had conceptual understanding of the information's generalizability. However, our design did not allow for teasing these two possibilities apart.</p> <p>Accordingly, the obtained inconclusive evidence for the null hypothesis indicated that toddlers' behavior in the Exploration and Transmission phases was similar in that they were not selective in either exploring or transmitting the generalizable information. In similar information transmission paradigms, participants are typically presented with a phase where they learn about the information and a phase where they transmit the previously learned information (e.g., Bazhydai et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref117">5</reflink>]; Vredenburgh et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref118">59</reflink>]). One notable limitation of these paradigms is that it is difficult to conclude that children deliberately intended their behavior as "transmitting information." Hence, it is possible that their behavior, albeit happening during a "transmission phase," might have other functions such as playing with the objects that they found interesting or consolidating their own knowledge of the objects. The inclusion of the exploration phase was a carefully designed feature in our modification of the paradigm. The cross‐phase comparison results therefore suggest toddlers' overall lack the preference for generalizability as expressed through our stimuli. To investigate whether toddlers indeed intend to transmit information to the learner upon their request, behavioral coding could be implemented to distinguish between intentionality in the Exploration and Transmission phases. Particular behaviors of interest that children might exhibit would be those argued to signal communicative intentions, such as establishing joint attention, using gestures and producing verbal instructions (e.g., Carpenter et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref119">11</reflink>]; Liszkowski et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref120">38</reflink>]; Tomasello et al., [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref121">57</reflink>]). Previous research showed that children aged 3–8 years tend to use ostensive signals (e.g., eye contact, contingent reactivity, or use of non‐specific gestures such as head nodding) when they transmit relevant information to others in pedagogical episodes (Calero et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref122">10</reflink>]). Capturing such behaviors as initiating social looks, gaze shifts, or using simple verbal instructions (e.g., "Look!," "Here!," "Push," etc.) would allow to detect behavior change in toddlers at Transmission compared to the Exploration phase. Research incorporating such behavioral coding in toddler samples is under way in our lab with the aim to shed light on this issue.</p> <p>Some limitations in our study warrant further discussion. As mentioned above, we assumed that toddlers would be able to represent the generalizability of information in the current study, given that even preverbal infants can track generalizability of object features based on perceptual similarity (Baldwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref123">3</reflink>]; McDonough & Mandler, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref124">42</reflink>]), that 2‐year‐old children use function information to categorize objects and object features (e.g., Kemler Nelson et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref125">36</reflink>]; Madole et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref126">41</reflink>]), and that 2.5‐year‐old children can make a distinction between generalizable and non‐generalizable information (e.g., Graham et al., [[<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref127">29</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref128">28</reflink>]]). Unlike the studies with older children where verbal manipulation checks can be conducted, we did not have a way to check for this without biasing the toddlers' subsequent behavior. Second, we encountered an unexpected fuss out rate which was surprising given similar studies conducted in our lab before the COVID‐19 pandemic. This might be due to toddlers born during the pandemic having limited social interactions compared to their pre‐pandemic peers. While the lockdown measures were in place, toddlers' exposure to social interaction decreased substantially (Byrne et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref129">9</reflink>]; Sledge et al., [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref130">53</reflink>]). Indeed, a recent study suggested that pandemic‐born babies might have deficits in some aspects of social communication such as producing first words, pointing and waving goodbye compared to babies born before the pandemic (Byrne et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref131">9</reflink>]). It is possible that visiting new environments, interacting with new people and objects might have been overwhelming leading to higher rates of fuss out. Future research should investigate the possible effect of the unprecedented measures due to the COVID‐19 pandemic on toddlers' sustained engagement in similar interactive experimental paradigms.</p> <p>Our findings have both theoretical and methodological implications. The emerging field studying teaching behavior in children is predominantly focused on preschool and school‐aged children. This work shows that children at this age become evidently good at sharing information with others by considering a multitude of factors (Bazhydai & Karadağ, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref132">4</reflink>]): which teaching strategies to use (Strauss & Ziv, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref133">55</reflink>]), with whom to share information (Danovitch, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref134">17</reflink>]; Karadağ & Soley, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref135">35</reflink>]; Kim et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref136">37</reflink>]), and what information to teach (Bridgers et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref137">6</reflink>]; Danovitch et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref138">18</reflink>]; Pueschel et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref139">48</reflink>]). While these studies enhance our understanding of children's teaching abilities, by overlooking infants and toddlers, they underemphasize the developmental trajectory of this behavior. Given that some theoretical accounts emphasize the relationship between generalizable information and pedagogical experiences (e.g., Moll, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref140">44</reflink>]; Strauss & Ziv, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref141">55</reflink>]), the lack of research in younger children is surprising. As we discussed earlier, testing toddlers and young children in this context has important implications in understanding children's appreciation of information generalizability developmentally which would enable more complete theoretical accounts of children's teaching. While our paradigm can be further improved, it translated tasks with verbal information transmission into a nonverbal domain, making it possible to test younger children without relying on their explicit conceptual understanding of generalizability.</p> <p>Future studies could implement a manipulation check to clarify whether toddlers understood the generalizability of the functions which would help interpret the robust null findings found in this study. A follow‐up study could be designed to specifically test this. For instance, after children discovered the functions of boxes independently and explored them simultaneously, the experimenter could show them a puppet, tell them the puppet wants to see the lights (i.e., when the light was the generalizable effect) and ask them which button the puppet should press to see the lights. Toddlers' choices could inform us whether they understand the generalizability of such stimuli. Alternatively, older children can be tested on the stimuli used in our study along with a version of verbal information tasks to see whether children's transmission decisions with respect to information generalizability converge between verbal and non‐verbal domains.</p> <p>In summary, our study suggests that unlike 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children, 2‐year‐olds do not display a preference to transmit generalizable information to others. These findings might suggest that sensitivity to generalizability as it relates to teaching‐like contexts develops gradually and could be linked to linguistic information.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-27">AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS</hd> <p>Didar Karadağ, Marina Bazhydai, and Gert Westermann conceived the research question, designed the experiment, Didar Karadağ wrote the original draft, collected, coded, and analyzed the data; Marina Bazhydai and Gert Westermann provided manuscript revisions and supervision.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-28">ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</hd> <p>This study was supported by the Doctoral Research Program in the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University and the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD; [ES/S007113/1 and ES/L008955/1]). We would like to thank Barrie Usherwood for his assistance in the creation of the stimuli. We would like to thank Amie Suthers for assistance with data collection and El Smith for inter‐rater reliability coding. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers who provided comments that improved the manuscript at both stages of the Registered Report.</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-29">CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT</hd> <p>The authors declare no conflict of interest</p> <hd id="AN0177740569-30">DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT</hd> <p>Anonymized data, stimuli demonstration videos, analysis outputs and approved Stage 1 protocol can be accessed on Open Science Framework here (https://osf.io/aqtwr/).</p> <p>GRAPH: Supporting Information</p> <ref id="AN0177740569-31"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref68" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Note that there can be an alternative explanation for children's transmission of generalizable information in both Exploration and Transmission Phases. Children might consider generalizable information as relevant to both themselves and for the learning of others. However, our current design does not allow to distinguish between these interpretations. If we observed the suggested pattern, this would be interpreted with the simpler explanation listed above (i.e., children find this information relevant for themselves, thus transmit it accordingly). Also see, <emph>weak argument</emph> on "theoretical interpretation of the results" in the Appendix.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref24" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> The power analysis was based on the statistical test that required the highest number of participants.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref31" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Demographic information is collected in line with the Lancaster University Babylab's common testing practices and complies with GDPR protocols. 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An: EJ1427784
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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Toddlers Do Not Preferentially Transmit Generalizable Information to Others
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Didar+Karadag%22">Didar Karadag</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3290-5229">0000-0003-3290-5229</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Marina+Bazhydai%22">Marina Bazhydai</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9619-3975">0000-0001-9619-3975</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Gert+Westermann%22">Gert Westermann</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2803-1872">0000-0003-2803-1872</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Developmental+Science%22"><i>Developmental Science</i></searchLink>. 2024 27(4).
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 12
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2024
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Toddlers%22">Toddlers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Information+Transfer%22">Information Transfer</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Communication+%28Thought+Transfer%29%22">Communication (Thought Transfer)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Generalization%22">Generalization</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Transfer+of+Training%22">Transfer of Training</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Learning%22">Learning</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+Kingdom%22">United Kingdom</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1111/desc.13479
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1363-755X<br />1467-7687
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Children actively and selectively transmit information to others based on the type of information and the context during learning. Four- to 7-year-old children preferentially transmit generalizable information in teaching-like contexts. Although 2-year-old children are able to distinguish between generalizable and non-generalizable information, it is not known whether they likewise transmit generalizable information selectively. We designed a behavioral study to address this question. Two-year-old children were presented with three novel boxes, identical except for their color. In each box, one of two equally salient actions led to a generalizable outcome (e.g., playing a [different] tune in each box), whereas the other led to a non-generalizable outcome (e.g., turning on a light, vibrating the box, or making a noise). In the discovery phase, children had a chance to discover the functions of each box presented one-by-one. Then, in the exploration phase, they were given the opportunity to independently explore all three boxes presented together. Finally, in the transmission phase, an ignorant recipient entered the room and asked the child to show them how these toys work. We measured whether children preferentially transmitted either generalizable or non-generalizable information when they were asked to demonstrate the function of the toys to a naïve adult. We found that children did not display any preference for transmitting generalizable information. These findings are discussed with respect to toddlers' selectivity in transmitting information but also the development of sensitivity to information generalizability.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: Note
  Label: Notes
  Group: Note
  Data: https://osf.io/aqtwr
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2024
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1427784
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1427784
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1111/desc.13479
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 12
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Toddlers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Information Transfer
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Communication (Thought Transfer)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Generalization
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Transfer of Training
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Learning
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: United Kingdom
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Toddlers Do Not Preferentially Transmit Generalizable Information to Others
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Didar Karadag
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Marina Bazhydai
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Gert Westermann
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 07
              Type: published
              Y: 2024
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1363-755X
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1467-7687
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              Value: 27
            – Type: issue
              Value: 4
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Developmental Science
              Type: main
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